


Into the Great Wide Open

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Family, Future Fic, Gen, Important Milestones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6954655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t make me give your mom a run for her money in the tears department today.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Great Wide Open

“Noah,” Ed knocked on the bedroom door. “Are you decent?”

“Yeah.” Noah laughed, inviting him in. “I'm not mom, you don’t have to ask me that.”

“Well it’s your room.” Ed walked in. “You have every right to walk around with your balls swinging free and I have every right not to see it.”

“I'm decent, dad.” Noah ran his hand down his dress shirt. “As you can see. I'm having some trouble with this tie though. I was gonna ask mom to help but I didn’t want her getting too emotional.”

“She cried three times this morning.” Ed took the tie and straightened it out. “She's crying right now.”

“Aww, man.”

“This is a big day for her. It is for all of us, but mom is pretty happy.”

“I bet she thought she'd never see it come.” Noah smirked.

“Hey, don’t talk like that.” He put the tie around the teenager’s neck and began tying it. Making sure Noah knew how to do this in the future was important. Though he was sure his son wanted little to do with ties, it was still a good skill to have. Just like Ed taught him to cook rice perfectly and never burn the cookies, he would also teach him how to tie a tie.

“I'm a year behind.”

“You're not…you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And there were some hurdles, we knew there would be. But you made it, kid.”

“Yeah.”

Both Ed and Olivia were aware of Noah’s developmental challenges before he even started school. They both worked hard, and so did their son, to get him on as good a track as possible. It wasn’t easy. Noah struggled in almost every school subject, the exceptions being art and computer classes. He ended up being an amazing artist and also had significant musical talent. 

But English, math, and history beat him into submission every year. There were tutoring schedules and three years of summer school between 8th and 12th grade. There were times when he wanted to give up. His parents hated to see him struggle with reading or remembering dates or doing math formulas. Science didn’t seem as bad, no one knew how but Noah maintained B’s in all of his science classes and was able to opt out of that subject senior year. 

But nothing had come easy to the kid where academics were concerned. Ed and Olivia just continued to love and encourage him. When he brought home a D, they told him that they loved him, believed in him, and he would do better next time. They never wanted him to give up…never let high school get the best of him. After getting left back in the 7th grade, Noah almost lost all confidence in school. 

But he knew he had to be some kind of example for his little sister, Ameenah. She was two grades behind him in school and though she was consistently at the top of her class, he still wanted her to know that if she stumbled it didn’t mean she had to fall. So after four of the hardest years of his life, Noah was about to graduate from Brooklyn School of Creative and Performing Arts. His drawings were enough to get him through the door, even with his middle school shortcomings. 

His blood, sweat, and tears were helping him walk out. He’d even gotten a $5000 a year scholarship to the Toronto School of Art and Graphic Design. Noah chose to defer until January, as long as his scholarship wasn’t affected. He told his parents he needed rest. After all they'd seen him go through, Liv and Ed were inclined to agree.

“I spent a week and a half trying to memorize this poem.” Noah said, keeping his chin up as his father worked on his tie. “It didn’t go well. I'm gonna read it from the paper.”

“You're going to do fine. Your classmates selected you for this.”

“Yeah, I owe them for that. I'm thinking water balloons.”

“Good choice.” Ed smoothed out the tie. “You look good, kid. Foxy.”

“Foxy, dad?” Noah raised an eyebrow.

“I thought that one was coming around again.”

“It kinda came, and went.” The teenager smiled and looked at himself in the mirror. 

Noah wore pressed black slacks, which he hated, and a white dress shirt. To bring some color, Uncle Rafi bought him a Calvin Klein tie. It was maroon with black and silver cubes on it and that almost looked 3D. He fell in love with it immediately. It was kickass, as ties went. Uncle Rafi told him a long time ago that at least three ties were essential to a man’s wardrobe. And they had to be good ties. If anyone knew good ties, it was Rafael Barba. 

“Whatever; you look great.” Ed put his hand on Noah’s shoulder. “We need to get downstairs. I'm sure the caravan is ready to head out.”

“Wanna take one last selfie for the road?” Noah took his iPhone out of his pocket.

Ed smiled, putting his arm around Noah as he snapped off a few pictures. Then he headed for the bedroom door.

“Do you have everything? You need your poem; mom has your cap and gown downstairs. And don’t forget…”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?” Ed stopped talking and turned around.

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Everything.” Noah replied. “Getting me through this; getting mom through this. Making us a family. For being the best dad a kid could ever ask for. For understanding that sports were never going to be my thing. For never, ever giving up on me even when I was close to doing it myself. I wouldn’t be here now if you hadn’t pushed.”

“I love you, kid.” Ed pulled Noah into his arms and hugged him tight. “Always.”

“I love you too.”

“Don’t make me give your mom a run for her money in the tears department today.”

“It’s OK for a man to cry…you taught me that too.”

Ed smiled, gently slapping his cheek. It was time to go. It was time for Noah to cross the threshold from childhood to adulthood. Ed had spent the past year working so hard on letting go. He and Liv loved their kids; they knew the world would be a better place with them working hard in it. 

That didn’t make any of this easy. He thought of his own father, who died just a year ago and left a large hole in the family. One of Noah’s greatest art pieces was capturing his grandfather out on the river in Lake Winona with a beer talking rod and reel. Jack Tucker’s love for Noah and Ameenah ran as deep as his son’s did. And though he didn’t make it to this day, Ed knew he was there. He was there in every sense of the word.

“You ready?” Ed asked.

“I think so.” Noah closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “OK, let's do this.”

***


End file.
